Alternatives and recommendations

Many of the tools developed in this package were first written in the framework of the PAW [7] project. They were extended and enhanced for the FATMEN [3] project. The tools are based on such de-facto standards as DECnet and TCP/IP sockets. However, new standards are now emerging which, together with enhancements to HEP packages, render parts of CSPACK redundant. Some of these are described below.

The main recommendations are:

• Use exchange data format whereever possible
• Only use files with fixed length records and no control words

• ftp transfer
• NFS access
• ZEBRA RZ files
• ZEBRA FZ files
• PATCHY files